This document prepared by the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) presents the framework for implementation of National Rural Livelihoods Mission. The key challenge, in India is to ensure that the economic growth is inclusive and leads to significant reduction of rural poverty.

The MoRD's Committee on Credit Related Issues under SGSY which gave its recommendations in the year 2009 had held widespread consultations on the recommendations and accepted the major ones. It secured the approval of the Planning Commission and the Finance Ministry for restructuring the SGSY as National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM).

The basic purpose of NRLM is to put in place a dedicated and sensitive support structure from the national level to the sub-district level that will focus on the poor and build and sustain their organizations at different levels. This will provide the poor a platform for collective action based on self help and mutual cooperation so they become a strong demand system, build linkages with mainstream institutions, including Banks, and Government Departments to address the various dimensions of poverty.

The guidelines should be seen under two categories, the ‘hard’ category and the ‘soft’ category –

• The ‘hard’ category includes the funding norms and ceiling for funding of different components, as approved by the Cabinet Committee. This category also includes the inter se allocation among the states, which is guided by the Planning Commission’s norms.
• The ‘soft’ category includes all the other processes described in these guidelines. The processes under this category are based on the learnings from large scale best practices in the country. This category of guidelines is not binding. These are for the guidance of the States/UTs to enable them to prepare their own action plans and for formulating their own guidelines in the matter.

As per the document, the operational guidelines of each state should evolve based on these guidelines, and based on their programme strengths and weaknesses. The external sensitive support structure envisioned under the NRLM should gradually shed its functions and responsibilities to the institutions of the poor and truly evolve into a sensitive facilitating structure.